Christians rejected contraception for centuries

When, how, and why did it change less than a hundred years ago?

Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash

The birth control pill was developed (through some undoubtedly questionable methods)¹ in the 1950s and released for use to a very specific subset of women in 1960. There’s a lot that can be and has been said about how this original Pill changed the fabric of our culture and our families. Within 5 years of hitting the market in the US, 1.5 million women were on it. Now? It’s likely over 100 million globally.²

But pregnancy prevention began long before the Pill.

Certainly there was a greater general awareness of how and when pregnancies were conceived in relation to a woman’s cycle. But there were even early birth control forms like condoms as early as 3000 BC.³ When unwanted pregnancies occurred, abortions were taking place.

But during all of these years and in all of these scenarios, the Christian Church was decidedly against the practices. Yes, the Catholic Church. But also the reformers. Check out John Calvin’s words in Commentary on Genesis:

I will contend myself with briefly mentioning this, as far as the sense of shame allows to discuss it. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is doubly horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime.

Wowza.

But in 1930, things began to change.